Do you agree that, when implementing a health care information system, patient safety is a partnership between the health care organization and health IT vendor? Why or Why not?
Do you agree that, when implementing a health care information system, patient safety is
a partnership between the health care organization and health IT vendor? Why or Why
not?
Patient safety is a partnership between the health care organization and health IT vendor. The
truth is, that thanks to health IT, new areas of patient safety are now a concern. Vendors use
many resources to gather feedback on their product, and are continuously making updates to
correct areas which are of concern or could cause issues in the future. Vendors are always
looking for software glitches, bugs, deviation from standard workflows, substandard designs, and
a combination of these. The issue is that many vendors do not release their findings to
organizations or the fixes/updates they have made. Many laws protect them from disclosing this
information, like proprietary data, but the truth is that there have been errors found that have
contributed to patient safety issues but have not been disclosed. This is because vendors do not
want to risks a bad reputation on their products, even though these findings and mistakes could
help the health care industry learn a great deal.
However, many vendors are working with health care organizations to ensure that their
products are working and error free. While vendors may want to limit the information about the
errors their systems may have caused or contributed to, it is in their best interest to keep an open
line of communication with the health care organizations they do dealings with. This is because
they offer valuable information about the bugs they have noticed, and improvement suggestions
from the medical providers who use the system every day. The best vendors are the ones who
work closely with health care organizations to deliver the best and safest products possible